It
is obvious from the National Rifle Association's popularity and the
support that it continually receives, a lot of people feel strongly
about the ability to carry guns for protection. One can say that
nearly always on their minds, or certainly in the back of their
minds, is the idea that they may need to use a gun in self-defense.
They have a sense that enemies are real and pose reliable threats.
While this is so for some, it is interesting that many others,
perhaps a majority, go about their lives without this feeling of
impending threat. For these people, constantly lurking threats are
not even in the back of their minds. In short, while a large group of
people feel they have real or potential enemies, another larger group
feels no sufficient alarm in this regard; and while admitting that
terrible things are possible, they refuse to have their outlook
determined by remote possibilities however grotesque.
I
feel this way myself. I rack my brain trying to visualize mayhem
perpetrated by an enemy at home or while on the street. Perhaps this
does not speak well of me; perhaps anyone worth their salt and anyone
with strong convictions in this world will surely have enemies of
some sort. I think of Jesus who while certainly a good man had
enemies aplenty; enemies that eventually crucified him. He had ideas,
opinions, and convictions that ran counter to many in his society. So
since I regularly surmise that I have no enemies, perhaps this is not
a good sign. Yet, I believe it is really the case that while some
people have an ingrained sense of threat, others confronted by much
the same reality do not. Is it farfetched to believe that it is
possible, even likely, that one can live a life in accord with the
rest of humanity? The remarkable fact is many people (really the
majority) navigate throughout out life without deadly enemies.
I
can only speak for myself, but if I were to choose to live among a
group of people, I would prefer living among people who do not feel
constantly threatened by their fellow human beings.
Today
in the news was a story about the Secret Service assigned to protect
President Obama. Let's consider the obvious fact that the president
(and this could be one of any party) is constantly under threat by
all sorts of potential enemies. So, I do not claim for a moment that
we live in a totally benign world. Every day I see on the news and
read in the paper of grotesque crimes committed against innocent
people in the community, yet I do not feel motivated to carry a gun
or even to have one. Perhaps this could be called unrealistic. A
person can justify carrying a gun based on the simple fact that
criminals are present. My position on this is that it really is not
my place to discern and execute this kind of ultimate justice. To me
this is a state function, a function which I am not qualified to
fill. Hence I feel content to leave law enforcement up to others—to
the servants of the state and the sworn officers within the state.
Obviously, if there were no state law enforcement it would be a Wild
West. Then, clearly, everyone would need to carry a gun. But since
this is not the case, and since my judgment especially under stress
and high emotion cannot be relied upon to deliver a measured sense of
justice, I am better off not having a gun. But this is a view based
on reasoning. It does not explain my emotional contentment to remain
unarmed.
Perhaps
in the end I'm afraid of guns, especially guns in my hands. I know
myself only too well (and other people's not well enough) to feel
confident about carrying a lethal weapon. I've heard it said that if
guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns. But despite this
saying—and I have to admit probably in the last analysis we are
faced with an unprovable matter—I prefer to rely on the state for
law enforcement and the due process of determining justice and not on
myself. I refuse to let a minority of lawbreakers undermine my
beliefs and convictions about the proper role of the state and its
law enforcement officers or of my role as an average unsworn citizen.
I am certain about that. It continues to amaze me that there are
people who blithely assume that they have complete control over
themselves in the use of a lethal weapon—that they have absolute
trust in themselves to decide justice on an instant. To me that
signifies feelings of rectitude and self-righteousness buttressed by
mental and emotional misgiving and
fear—bringing to mind the words of FDR in his
first
inaugural address
when he spoke about the nation's economic catastrophe: “So,
first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we
have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified
terror...
” (Source).
